This weekend, Marquette will travel to Storrs, Conn., for the Big East Outdoor Championships.,”
In the track and field team's second season in the Big East, it's still in limbo. The squad, stronger than it was in Conference USA years, is not yet ready to perform as a Big East elite.
This weekend, Marquette will travel to Storrs, Conn., for the Big East Outdoor Championships. Last year, the men placed 10th and the women 11th.
Expectations of immediately becoming an upper-echelon Big East team would have been ambitious for Marquette, which has just 95 athletes on the men's and women's teams. Head coach Dave Uhrich wants progress each year, and if both squads crack the top 10 this weekend, they will have taken important steps forward.
"We're kind of realizing what we have to do each year to get it right," Uhrich said. "The athletes have to have an approach like, 'Hey, I'm a Big East athlete.' Some of them are buying into that approach and some are not."
The women's distance medley team took that approach when it set a school record Friday, finishing in 11:32.75. Junior captain Cassie Peller anchored the medley after freshman Jayne Grebinski and seniors Kristina Malin and Michaela Courtney ran the first three legs, respectively.
Peller, perhaps the biggest leader and best performer on Marquette's roster, has qualified for the NCAA Midwest Regional in the 1,500-meter run. Now, she has her eyes on a National Championship qualification, something she has never done.
"That'd be great," Peller said after the Oregon Invitational. "And I hope that Michaela can get there, too. We'll take a shot at it in Storrs."
On the men's side, senior Damian Anisko and junior Ray Bratchett anchor the throwers and jumpers. Anisko set a Marquette record in the hammer throw at Illinois State Saturday, with a heave that went 188-9. Bratchett and freshman T.J. Hodgson each had season-best 6-6.75 high jumps on Apr. 21 in Iowa City, Iowa.
"I'm shooting to finish top five," Bratchett said. "If I can get in the top three, I'd be ecstatic."
As would the team as it tries to push forward while still in limbo.
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